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Replacing My Kid’s College Fund with a “Start Something” Fund

104 points by RobbieStats 9y ago

Broken_Hippo 9y ago
I always knew kids that wanted to start their own business - at least in high school and college. I grew up poor-to-middle class, nothing special, living in Indiana. I'm about 39 now. Some folks just don't consider it so young, just like changing professions in one's late 20's. It usually goes along with the dream of not having to answer to a boss and/or working hours one wants to work, but not always. But I do think more folks would try if they could take the college money and invest it in things like starting a business, no matter what the business is, and wish more folks had this option.
- bsbechtel 9y ago
  It would help a lot in making this a viable option if more companies gave credit/valued the experience a young person gains by trying to start their own company. Outside of the Bay Area, this is a rare occurance.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    I'm not sure it's so much hiring managers not giving credit. Rather that, especially for relatively entry-level jobs, companies--especially larger ones--use a lot of cookie cutter heuristics to sort applicants. And "tried to start a company rather than go to college" tends to fail those heuristics.
  - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
    Actually, it depends on the industry you are applying for. If you are OK with something like retail management - something that is generally a path for folks without college anyway - you can generally hire in above entry level. Same with some other industries and jobs - mostly because you are more likely to meet the experience requirements. Your pay might or might not be on par with someone with a degree, but at that point you might be able to remedy that.
  - usrusr 9y ago
    How valuable would that experience really be? "Hired some friends and had a good time playing pretend-company until we ran out of daddy-money" is a likely outcome and that sounds way to much like the kind of college years that is spent completely ignoring all education opportunities before eventually dropping out. When the company turns out to be viable the person would not be looking for a job. But when it falls despite all the free runway the experience is likely much lesser than that of someone who failed by a tiny main bootstrapping or convincing real investors.
- fsloth 9y ago
  "But I do think more folks would try if they could take the college money and invest it in things like starting a business, no matter what the business is, and wish more folks had this option." I don't think these options are comparable. The other is a structured path to more or less predictably increase ones human capital while the other is a high risk, unstructured mess. I suppose the key is this - can the person thrive in a non-structured space, and would they enjoy the hustle of entrepreneurship.
  - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
    They are definitely different options - and I think that is a good thing. I figure that some folks are good without the structured college environment, and some folks are truly self-starters or simply interested in things that college will help them little with (wanting to own a restaurant, for example). I think a few would be good with either option. I'm also a fan of affordable trade schools and different types of apprenticeships or work/school combinations. They sometimes like comparing apples to oranges, but I also think they give more of the population viable options for their life. But you are correct, it does depend on the person and what, exactly, they want to do. I'd not just give the money without strings attached: After all, college funds depend on the person getting into college. Startup funds would depend on them learning the skills they need, have a seemingly viable business plan, and possibly a backup plan in case it goes awry.
jaclaz 9y ago
I don't know. Basically this means more or less that on the day your son (or daughter) becomes 18 you put on the table 2,000x100 US$ bills in a few neat stacks and ask him/her whether he/she likes it better to: 1) Study (hard) for the next 5 years (possibly in a remote city), living with one or more co-students in a tiny apartment and receive - say - some 500-600 bucks each month for petty expenses OR: 2) get - here and now - all the 200,000 US$ as long as they are used ONLY in expenses related to the building of a new company, but of course with no particular form of control on expenses, as I trust you and you are big enough to make your own decisions. With rigorously invented numbers (i.e. pure speculation or guessing), I would expect that out of 100 choosing option #1 70 would get after 5 or 6 years studying and a degree (without student debt to hunt them for the rest of their life) a decent, qualified job (and income), 20 a somewhat underpaid job, 5 no stable job/income and 5 (for one reason or the other) something else. Of those that chose option #2, I would expect that 5 manage to build a "successful" company, 15 a more or less good company (anyway providing enough income to have bills paid and raise a family) and 80 either building a company soon going to Chapter 11/bankrupcy or building no company at all. The good question would be how many of 18 years old would choose option #1 over #2?
- finolex1 9y ago
  I daresay the experience of hustling and trying to build a company is a valuable form of education even for the 80 who fail
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    Sure, it is a form of education, but - being probably much more pessimist than you are - my invented 80 was including BOTH those that tried (with smart ideas and hard work) but failed AND those that wouldn't even try or try without ideas nor working too much hard for it. I suspect that for the latter ones (how many? maybe 20-30) that wouldn't even be educative at all.
  - jccooper 9y ago
    Sure, but what's important from college is not education, but credentials. The credit given for having a failed company on your resume is significantly less than for a BA of any sort.
manbearpigg 9y ago
A fully qualified engineer will be in a much better position to provide valuable products and services than an 18 year old noob. I guess it's better than a gender studies degree, but believe it or not, undergraduate education is not completely useless. I learned a hell of a lot.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Even a gender studies degree would have a lot of value. A lot of people who get university degrees, myself included, end up working in a completely unrelated field, but that doesn't mean the education was worthless.
- hacksonx 9y ago
  It's not completely useless ... Yet, but with the shift the world is taking (globalisation, *robotisation and move to renewables) it will be. Some engineering degree too will put not have a place in the future.
  - EduardoBautista 9y ago
    What he's saying is that a college education does not have ton map directly to a job to be useful. So even in your example an engineering degree will have some value.
- 20years 9y ago
  "A fully qualified engineer will be in a much better position to provide valuable products and services than an 18 year old noob." Not sure I totally agree with this. I have meet a ton of very smart fully qualified engineers who have no business sense whatsoever. That does not mean I am discounting the engineering degree. Not at all. At least an engineering degree will generally give you a very nice return. What makes a good engineer though is not often the same as what makes a good entrepreneur.
  - lazaroclapp 9y ago
    Guess the point is: All else being equal, someone with a relevant degree will have an easier time being a successful entrepreneur (and, not less important: a reasonable backup plan) than someone fresh out of high school. Likely they will have a better network too. And this is all assuming that entrepreneurship is really the goal, which, lets face it, for most people is an unreasonable trade-off of safety, personal time, health and comfort for nebulous "freedom" and a very unlikely chance at striking gold.
tudorw 9y ago
I went the build your business route, if I had my time again I'd get the degree first, compared to the time, effort and risk of building a business taking 5 years to get a degree seems like time well spent. Getting a degree does not preclude you from starting a business, the reverse is not so universally true as youth is on your side when funding education in most countries. Few of my peers work in fields related to their degree, yet few would have their current standing were it not for holding a degree.
- 34090doood9 9y ago
  There's a certain cultural or community hypocrisy in these discussions. Not at the level of individuals necessarily, but it seems in reading through HN and other sites, there's two opposite messages I see: The first is "degree doesn't matter! You need to go out and build something, and you don't need a degree to do it!" The other is "we won't hire anyone except those with X STEM degree, possibly even not anyone unless they have a master's degree or higher." As someone considering a career change (with an advanced degree) it's maddening. The message seems to be that if you don't have a core STEM degree, or haven't started a self-sustaining mega-profitable business, you have no ability to do anything. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, other than that societal perceptions of skill and ability seem seriously pathological. I don't think everyone needs an undergrad degree, but it sure doesn't hurt. But by the same token, a degree isn't everything, and I think people need to take this position seriously if they're going to take it.
- anotherbrownguy 9y ago
  >Getting a degree does not preclude you from starting a business I would argue that it does. When you get a degree, you are mostly being guided into thinking patterns of academics i.e. the people who most likely did not pursue business... or worse condemn business in some way. Even if starting your business requires several years of academic knowledge, I think it is much better if you start it without a degree anyway and then take courses along the way. That way, you will have a much better context for what you are learning because you can immediately apply some of it.
equivocates 9y ago
Serious question: what do your kids know about running a company?
- urethrafranklin 9y ago
  Serious answer: it's not about his kids, it's about him living vicariously through them. Oh, and building his twitter/thinkfluencer brand
yourmailman 9y ago
Silly if you think they are mutually exclusive
AznHisoka 9y ago
Why not do both? You have so much time in college you can strt a side business in those 4 years. Yes college is a lot of assignments but looking back, you realize you could have still graduated doing 50% less work.
- soneca 9y ago
  Well, in the article he does say that college is still an option after the company if it fails
  - jaclaz 9y ago
    Yep, but it is not like there is infinite supply of (assumed earlier by me) US$ 200,000 packets. There is just one, and if your kid burned it, there is no more for the college.
soneca 9y ago
The problem I see is that this option is about finantial success, not education. Why not a third option of a fund to pay for 4 years of living/travelling expenses, courses/books/workshops on a chosen field of knowledge?
osrec 9y ago
I love this idea, but you need to nurture the entrepreneur in your child before giving them the money. Like a lot of people here, I have a decent degree from a good university; I can confirm that it hasn't given me much more than a foot in the door for my next interview. Most of the academic knowledge I gained, I could have learnt by myself (in fact that's what I did, even at university), and a lot of it is now redundant. In some ways, I feel a university education was a fairly bad use of my time and money. After uni, I got a "good" job, was hugely unsatisfied, saved some money and then started my own company. I cannot stress enough how difficult it can be to find direction when doing your own thing. As a kid you're used to living within a fairly bounded, directed framework. When you have to define your own direction, it can unsettle you. Make sure your kids are comfortable with finding their own way - it's not just about making them independent, but also about developing an intelligent work ethic (which I believe is the key characteristic of a good entrepreneur), and being comfortable in the midst of uncertainty.
- 20years 9y ago
  "you need to nurture the entrepreneur in your child before giving them the money." This is key imo. Even if it means starting small little business type things like selling candy at school. Teach them how to keep track of profit/losses/expenses, how to recognize opportunities and how to test the waters before jumping fully in. I do this with my 13 year old son. His most successful business so far has brought him $4500 in revenue. I don't call it entrepreneur training or even training at all. He doesn't even really realize he is learning. It is something fun we do together and he has tasted what it feels like to make his own money. It has allowed him to save and buy his own things. When he graduates from high school, I won't push him one way or another (college vs entrepreneurship). I will leave that up to him but I hope at least I will have given him a little taste of entrepreneurship so he can make his own choice when the time comes. I will also heavily encourage him to work a few jobs at other companies first. That in itself is a huge learning experience.
bitJericho 9y ago
There's a third option. Self educate. Take 200,000. Buy all the tools and equipment you need to do what you love. Do what you love for 5 to 10 years and you'll have more than enough experience to be successful in your industry.
- learc83 9y ago
  Almost no 18 year olds are self disciplined enough to do that without structure. That's the point of college. If you spend 5 years only playing your favorite parts of your favorite songs on a guitar, you're not going to be a good musician. Just like if you spend five years doing the fun parts of programming or engineering or history, you won't be a good programmer, engineer, or historian. College (or an apprenticeship, or trade school) isn't required to learn the hard/boring parts, but very few people are capable of doing so on their own at that age.
  - jchin 9y ago
    I would argue that "few people are capable of so on their own at that age" because they were never given the opportunity to learn and practice self-discipline at an earlier age. After all, the typical American schooling experience allows very little room for deviation from the same thing everyone else is doing. If you started to self-direct at 13 (or earlier), you'd probably be pretty self-disciplined at 18.
  - tprice7 9y ago
    Ok, so you are saying that, since people in general like to do fun things, it takes a lot of self discipline to make yourself learn programming, history, etc, which in general requires doing things that aren't fun. I think you are overlooking something however: people don't just like to do fun things, they also like to make things that are cool (maybe not all people but this is very common in my estimation). And making things that are cool often requires doing boring work and learning boring things, even though the end result is not boring. I find this can be a very powerful source of motivation, so it actually might not take so much discipline as you think. I would even speculate that how interesting / boring you find something is not static, but that otherwise boring things can start to seem interesting once it's clear that they are relevant to something you want to achieve. Personally I learnt math mostly from self-study, and I've learnt it well enough that I now have published research (see [1], also [2] is in review and has been recommended for acceptance with revisions by the referee), have been invited to give talks about my research [3][4][5], and have stayed for a few months as a visiting researcher at University of Muenster [6]. I don't consider myself as having a lot of self-discipline; I have a tendency to hit the snooze button many times, to overeat, to let my room get messy, etc. But once I have an idea, I want to flesh it out and share it with other people, which motivates me to do the things that are necessary for this, which are sometimes boring. [1] http://content.algebraicgeometry.nl/2017-2/2017-2-007.pdf http://content.algebraicgeometry.nl/2017-2/2017-2-007.pdf [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.07306 https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.07306 [3] https://www.uni-muenster.de/FB10srvi/HotNews/show_artikel.php?id=6299&brettid=48 https://www.uni-muenster.de/FB10srvi/HotNews/show_artikel.ph... [4] http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/arit_spring2016 http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/arit_spring2... [5] http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/arit_fall2016 http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/arit_fall201... [6] https://web.archive.org/web/20170121000748/https://wwwmath.uni-muenster.de/u/deninger/about/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170121000748/https://wwwmath.u...
goldfeld 9y ago
Sounds like a horrible idea full of assumptions and pressure, as opposed to offering an exploratory period of life that is college (socially and intellectually), a nice option for those who can afford it. Not everyone has to be coaxed into entrepreneurship, it's an evil of our consumerist age. Your kid would probably rather participate in society at large than in your suicidal runway idea of a romanticized youth of modern times. "Starting something" with no experience at all is almost guaranteed to mean burned cash, family resentment and a bunch of hard lessons. Why not send them to military school and spare cash and suffering?
- keeptrying 9y ago
  I've seen parents essentially drive kids into liberal arts by pressuring kids to try everything else. Pointing a kid in the right direction is high art.
  - tensor 9y ago
    You say this as though liberal arts is bad, perhaps that's what some people want to do. Don't see anything wrong with it.
    - pirocks 9y ago
      > You say this as though liberal arts is bad, perhaps that's what some people want to do. Currently in the US you have no choice (if your going to college) as to whether or not you get a liberal arts education. Pretty much every school in the US have strong general education requirements. So perhaps some people want to do liberal arts, and that's great but Imo it is being imposed on the entire society.
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        I don't know what they are now but I satisfied the gen ed requirements of my engineering degree with 2 classes of Spanish, 2 classes of economics, 2 classes of philosophy and 1 class of history. I tested out of the Spanish (approximately by knowing "perro", that is knowing some basic vocabulary) and still got 8 credit hours for it. Math, chemistry and physics (4,1 and 2 classes) are technically liberal arts, but they were also sort of applicable to my degree. I suppose there is an argument to be made that 1.5 semesters is a "strong" requirement, but not really, especially when it includes 3-4 beginner classes that are mostly surveys.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sumanthvepa 9y ago
If I were the parent I'd provide my kid with both options simultaneously: Money for college and additionally money to take two years off after college to do a startup.
Waterluvian 9y ago
I have an "after highschool" fund. My parents called this a university fund. But I'm communicating it as money to use to figure out what you want to do with your life. My kids can use it to do whatever, so long as they can make a rational case for how they intend on spending it. They'll also have to endure lots of dad talks and dad advice to make use of this resource. If I've done my job as a parent well, I won't have to worry about policing the "proper" use of this money.
- overcast 9y ago
  "If I've done my job as a parent well, I won't have to worry about policing the "proper" use of this money." Except they still have to come up with a rational case, and endure lots of dad talks, and dad advice before they can use it.
nyxtom 9y ago
This seems like a problem that could be solved by simply having business development classes in high school. Much like all other skills, there is a need to understand what it takes to run a business; manage budgets, invoice and some rudimentary things. You don't have to create some crazy big start-up, but these are skills that seem necessarily to understand before college. My sister started a therapy business after she was in college and there are basic skills that could of been taught in high school that would of better prepared things. I didn't come across business plan proposals and contingency plans until college but these are pretty straightforward things that could of been taught far earlier IMHO. Once you have that in place, if not in the education system, then through parenting and after-school programs, then by the time college comes around the "decision to start a business" won't come with the unnecessary risk of not knowing how to run one.
bspn 9y ago
I find the title a little manufactured to be honest. He openly admits that if his kids decide they want to go to college then the fund will cover 4 years tuition, but if they decide to do something else then he'll fund that pursuit too. I think his open-mindedness is great as college isn't for everyone, but neither is entrepreneurialism. At the end of the day though, he's not really replacing anything but rather he's doing exactly what he was previously just with a different label.
jchin 9y ago
I agree with the sentiment that college is not the only choice after high school and may not be the best place to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit. However, I was surprised that after all the words used to describe how school was lacking in this particular direction, taking the kids out of school was not considered. As some of the other commenters are suggesting, it may be too much of a jump to offer such a choice to the child at 18 if the child was not preparing for such an opportunity. Homeschooling has its own critics and supporters and we don't need to get into that here. But my question is this: If he's going to trust his child to make a choice at 18, why not even earlier? How about 14? Or, in other words, why not have their education focus on learning how to make their own decisions as early as possible? And if school doesn't provide this for his children, should they be there? Granted, the author doesn't outline what he plans on doing between now and the end of high school for his kids so maybe he is, in fact, preparing them for this decision. I just think that the decision would be too drastic to spring on an 18 year old who has had no preparation for it.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  You may be interested in a concept called "unschooling." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling
  - jchin 9y ago
    Yes. Also, the discussions on John Taylor Gatto's work https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381608
Havoc 9y ago
Matching the return on a quality education is going to be tough.
finnjohnsen2 9y ago
whenever i see "my kid's college fund", im reminded how grateful i am to live in a more social country than the US. (Norway here btw)
- anotherbrownguy 9y ago
  Now, download your government's budget, check the expenses in higher education and compare the taxes that all working Norwegians have to pay to support the education system (whether they go to school or not, have children or not) vs taxes in the US.

104 points by RobbieStats 9y ago

I always knew kids that wanted to start their own business - at least in high school and college. I grew up poor-to-middle class, nothing special, living in Indiana. I'm about 39 now. Some folks just don't consider it so young, just like changing professions in one's late 20's. It usually goes along with the dream of not having to answer to a boss and/or working hours one wants to work, but not always. But I do think more folks would try if they could take the college money and invest it in things like starting a business, no matter what the business is, and wish more folks had this option.

bsbechtel 9y ago
It would help a lot in making this a viable option if more companies gave credit/valued the experience a young person gains by trying to start their own company. Outside of the Bay Area, this is a rare occurance.
- ghaff 9y ago
  I'm not sure it's so much hiring managers not giving credit. Rather that, especially for relatively entry-level jobs, companies--especially larger ones--use a lot of cookie cutter heuristics to sort applicants. And "tried to start a company rather than go to college" tends to fail those heuristics.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  Actually, it depends on the industry you are applying for. If you are OK with something like retail management - something that is generally a path for folks without college anyway - you can generally hire in above entry level. Same with some other industries and jobs - mostly because you are more likely to meet the experience requirements. Your pay might or might not be on par with someone with a degree, but at that point you might be able to remedy that.
- usrusr 9y ago
  How valuable would that experience really be? "Hired some friends and had a good time playing pretend-company until we ran out of daddy-money" is a likely outcome and that sounds way to much like the kind of college years that is spent completely ignoring all education opportunities before eventually dropping out. When the company turns out to be viable the person would not be looking for a job. But when it falls despite all the free runway the experience is likely much lesser than that of someone who failed by a tiny main bootstrapping or convincing real investors.
fsloth 9y ago
"But I do think more folks would try if they could take the college money and invest it in things like starting a business, no matter what the business is, and wish more folks had this option." I don't think these options are comparable. The other is a structured path to more or less predictably increase ones human capital while the other is a high risk, unstructured mess. I suppose the key is this - can the person thrive in a non-structured space, and would they enjoy the hustle of entrepreneurship.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  They are definitely different options - and I think that is a good thing. I figure that some folks are good without the structured college environment, and some folks are truly self-starters or simply interested in things that college will help them little with (wanting to own a restaurant, for example). I think a few would be good with either option. I'm also a fan of affordable trade schools and different types of apprenticeships or work/school combinations. They sometimes like comparing apples to oranges, but I also think they give more of the population viable options for their life. But you are correct, it does depend on the person and what, exactly, they want to do. I'd not just give the money without strings attached: After all, college funds depend on the person getting into college. Startup funds would depend on them learning the skills they need, have a seemingly viable business plan, and possibly a backup plan in case it goes awry.

jaclaz 9y ago

I don't know. Basically this means more or less that on the day your son (or daughter) becomes 18 you put on the table 2,000x100 US$ bills in a few neat stacks and ask him/her whether he/she likes it better to: 1) Study (hard) for the next 5 years (possibly in a remote city), living with one or more co-students in a tiny apartment and receive - say - some 500-600 bucks each month for petty expenses OR: 2) get - here and now - all the 200,000 US$ as long as they are used ONLY in expenses related to the building of a new company, but of course with no particular form of control on expenses, as I trust you and you are big enough to make your own decisions. With rigorously invented numbers (i.e. pure speculation or guessing), I would expect that out of 100 choosing option #1 70 would get after 5 or 6 years studying and a degree (without student debt to hunt them for the rest of their life) a decent, qualified job (and income), 20 a somewhat underpaid job, 5 no stable job/income and 5 (for one reason or the other) something else. Of those that chose option #2, I would expect that 5 manage to build a "successful" company, 15 a more or less good company (anyway providing enough income to have bills paid and raise a family) and 80 either building a company soon going to Chapter 11/bankrupcy or building no company at all. The good question would be how many of 18 years old would choose option #1 over #2?

finolex1 9y ago
I daresay the experience of hustling and trying to build a company is a valuable form of education even for the 80 who fail
- jaclaz 9y ago
  Sure, it is a form of education, but - being probably much more pessimist than you are - my invented 80 was including BOTH those that tried (with smart ideas and hard work) but failed AND those that wouldn't even try or try without ideas nor working too much hard for it. I suspect that for the latter ones (how many? maybe 20-30) that wouldn't even be educative at all.
- jccooper 9y ago
  Sure, but what's important from college is not education, but credentials. The credit given for having a failed company on your resume is significantly less than for a BA of any sort.

manbearpigg 9y ago

A fully qualified engineer will be in a much better position to provide valuable products and services than an 18 year old noob. I guess it's better than a gender studies degree, but believe it or not, undergraduate education is not completely useless. I learned a hell of a lot.

emodendroket 9y ago
Even a gender studies degree would have a lot of value. A lot of people who get university degrees, myself included, end up working in a completely unrelated field, but that doesn't mean the education was worthless.
hacksonx 9y ago
It's not completely useless ... Yet, but with the shift the world is taking (globalisation, *robotisation and move to renewables) it will be. Some engineering degree too will put not have a place in the future.
- EduardoBautista 9y ago
  What he's saying is that a college education does not have ton map directly to a job to be useful. So even in your example an engineering degree will have some value.
20years 9y ago
"A fully qualified engineer will be in a much better position to provide valuable products and services than an 18 year old noob." Not sure I totally agree with this. I have meet a ton of very smart fully qualified engineers who have no business sense whatsoever. That does not mean I am discounting the engineering degree. Not at all. At least an engineering degree will generally give you a very nice return. What makes a good engineer though is not often the same as what makes a good entrepreneur.
- lazaroclapp 9y ago
  Guess the point is: All else being equal, someone with a relevant degree will have an easier time being a successful entrepreneur (and, not less important: a reasonable backup plan) than someone fresh out of high school. Likely they will have a better network too. And this is all assuming that entrepreneurship is really the goal, which, lets face it, for most people is an unreasonable trade-off of safety, personal time, health and comfort for nebulous "freedom" and a very unlikely chance at striking gold.

tudorw 9y ago

I went the build your business route, if I had my time again I'd get the degree first, compared to the time, effort and risk of building a business taking 5 years to get a degree seems like time well spent. Getting a degree does not preclude you from starting a business, the reverse is not so universally true as youth is on your side when funding education in most countries. Few of my peers work in fields related to their degree, yet few would have their current standing were it not for holding a degree.

34090doood9 9y ago
There's a certain cultural or community hypocrisy in these discussions. Not at the level of individuals necessarily, but it seems in reading through HN and other sites, there's two opposite messages I see: The first is "degree doesn't matter! You need to go out and build something, and you don't need a degree to do it!" The other is "we won't hire anyone except those with X STEM degree, possibly even not anyone unless they have a master's degree or higher." As someone considering a career change (with an advanced degree) it's maddening. The message seems to be that if you don't have a core STEM degree, or haven't started a self-sustaining mega-profitable business, you have no ability to do anything. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, other than that societal perceptions of skill and ability seem seriously pathological. I don't think everyone needs an undergrad degree, but it sure doesn't hurt. But by the same token, a degree isn't everything, and I think people need to take this position seriously if they're going to take it.
anotherbrownguy 9y ago
>Getting a degree does not preclude you from starting a business I would argue that it does. When you get a degree, you are mostly being guided into thinking patterns of academics i.e. the people who most likely did not pursue business... or worse condemn business in some way. Even if starting your business requires several years of academic knowledge, I think it is much better if you start it without a degree anyway and then take courses along the way. That way, you will have a much better context for what you are learning because you can immediately apply some of it.

equivocates 9y ago

Serious question: what do your kids know about running a company?

urethrafranklin 9y ago
Serious answer: it's not about his kids, it's about him living vicariously through them. Oh, and building his twitter/thinkfluencer brand

yourmailman 9y ago

Silly if you think they are mutually exclusive

AznHisoka 9y ago

Why not do both? You have so much time in college you can strt a side business in those 4 years. Yes college is a lot of assignments but looking back, you realize you could have still graduated doing 50% less work.

soneca 9y ago
Well, in the article he does say that college is still an option after the company if it fails
- jaclaz 9y ago
  Yep, but it is not like there is infinite supply of (assumed earlier by me) US$ 200,000 packets. There is just one, and if your kid burned it, there is no more for the college.

soneca 9y ago

The problem I see is that this option is about finantial success, not education. Why not a third option of a fund to pay for 4 years of living/travelling expenses, courses/books/workshops on a chosen field of knowledge?

osrec 9y ago

I love this idea, but you need to nurture the entrepreneur in your child before giving them the money. Like a lot of people here, I have a decent degree from a good university; I can confirm that it hasn't given me much more than a foot in the door for my next interview. Most of the academic knowledge I gained, I could have learnt by myself (in fact that's what I did, even at university), and a lot of it is now redundant. In some ways, I feel a university education was a fairly bad use of my time and money. After uni, I got a "good" job, was hugely unsatisfied, saved some money and then started my own company. I cannot stress enough how difficult it can be to find direction when doing your own thing. As a kid you're used to living within a fairly bounded, directed framework. When you have to define your own direction, it can unsettle you. Make sure your kids are comfortable with finding their own way - it's not just about making them independent, but also about developing an intelligent work ethic (which I believe is the key characteristic of a good entrepreneur), and being comfortable in the midst of uncertainty.

20years 9y ago
"you need to nurture the entrepreneur in your child before giving them the money." This is key imo. Even if it means starting small little business type things like selling candy at school. Teach them how to keep track of profit/losses/expenses, how to recognize opportunities and how to test the waters before jumping fully in. I do this with my 13 year old son. His most successful business so far has brought him $4500 in revenue. I don't call it entrepreneur training or even training at all. He doesn't even really realize he is learning. It is something fun we do together and he has tasted what it feels like to make his own money. It has allowed him to save and buy his own things. When he graduates from high school, I won't push him one way or another (college vs entrepreneurship). I will leave that up to him but I hope at least I will have given him a little taste of entrepreneurship so he can make his own choice when the time comes. I will also heavily encourage him to work a few jobs at other companies first. That in itself is a huge learning experience.

bitJericho 9y ago

There's a third option. Self educate. Take 200,000. Buy all the tools and equipment you need to do what you love. Do what you love for 5 to 10 years and you'll have more than enough experience to be successful in your industry.

learc83 9y ago
Almost no 18 year olds are self disciplined enough to do that without structure. That's the point of college. If you spend 5 years only playing your favorite parts of your favorite songs on a guitar, you're not going to be a good musician. Just like if you spend five years doing the fun parts of programming or engineering or history, you won't be a good programmer, engineer, or historian. College (or an apprenticeship, or trade school) isn't required to learn the hard/boring parts, but very few people are capable of doing so on their own at that age.
- jchin 9y ago
  I would argue that "few people are capable of so on their own at that age" because they were never given the opportunity to learn and practice self-discipline at an earlier age. After all, the typical American schooling experience allows very little room for deviation from the same thing everyone else is doing. If you started to self-direct at 13 (or earlier), you'd probably be pretty self-disciplined at 18.
- tprice7 9y ago
  Ok, so you are saying that, since people in general like to do fun things, it takes a lot of self discipline to make yourself learn programming, history, etc, which in general requires doing things that aren't fun. I think you are overlooking something however: people don't just like to do fun things, they also like to make things that are cool (maybe not all people but this is very common in my estimation). And making things that are cool often requires doing boring work and learning boring things, even though the end result is not boring. I find this can be a very powerful source of motivation, so it actually might not take so much discipline as you think. I would even speculate that how interesting / boring you find something is not static, but that otherwise boring things can start to seem interesting once it's clear that they are relevant to something you want to achieve. Personally I learnt math mostly from self-study, and I've learnt it well enough that I now have published research (see [1], also [2] is in review and has been recommended for acceptance with revisions by the referee), have been invited to give talks about my research [3][4][5], and have stayed for a few months as a visiting researcher at University of Muenster [6]. I don't consider myself as having a lot of self-discipline; I have a tendency to hit the snooze button many times, to overeat, to let my room get messy, etc. But once I have an idea, I want to flesh it out and share it with other people, which motivates me to do the things that are necessary for this, which are sometimes boring. [1] http://content.algebraicgeometry.nl/2017-2/2017-2-007.pdf http://content.algebraicgeometry.nl/2017-2/2017-2-007.pdf [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.07306 https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.07306 [3] https://www.uni-muenster.de/FB10srvi/HotNews/show_artikel.php?id=6299&brettid=48 https://www.uni-muenster.de/FB10srvi/HotNews/show_artikel.ph... [4] http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/arit_spring2016 http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/arit_spring2... [5] http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/arit_fall2016 http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/arit/arit_fall201... [6] https://web.archive.org/web/20170121000748/https://wwwmath.uni-muenster.de/u/deninger/about/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170121000748/https://wwwmath.u...

goldfeld 9y ago

Sounds like a horrible idea full of assumptions and pressure, as opposed to offering an exploratory period of life that is college (socially and intellectually), a nice option for those who can afford it. Not everyone has to be coaxed into entrepreneurship, it's an evil of our consumerist age. Your kid would probably rather participate in society at large than in your suicidal runway idea of a romanticized youth of modern times. "Starting something" with no experience at all is almost guaranteed to mean burned cash, family resentment and a bunch of hard lessons. Why not send them to military school and spare cash and suffering?

keeptrying 9y ago
I've seen parents essentially drive kids into liberal arts by pressuring kids to try everything else. Pointing a kid in the right direction is high art.
- tensor 9y ago
  You say this as though liberal arts is bad, perhaps that's what some people want to do. Don't see anything wrong with it.
  - pirocks 9y ago
    > You say this as though liberal arts is bad, perhaps that's what some people want to do. Currently in the US you have no choice (if your going to college) as to whether or not you get a liberal arts education. Pretty much every school in the US have strong general education requirements. So perhaps some people want to do liberal arts, and that's great but Imo it is being imposed on the entire society.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      I don't know what they are now but I satisfied the gen ed requirements of my engineering degree with 2 classes of Spanish, 2 classes of economics, 2 classes of philosophy and 1 class of history. I tested out of the Spanish (approximately by knowing "perro", that is knowing some basic vocabulary) and still got 8 credit hours for it. Math, chemistry and physics (4,1 and 2 classes) are technically liberal arts, but they were also sort of applicable to my degree. I suppose there is an argument to be made that 1.5 semesters is a "strong" requirement, but not really, especially when it includes 3-4 beginner classes that are mostly surveys.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

sumanthvepa 9y ago

If I were the parent I'd provide my kid with both options simultaneously: Money for college and additionally money to take two years off after college to do a startup.

Waterluvian 9y ago

I have an "after highschool" fund. My parents called this a university fund. But I'm communicating it as money to use to figure out what you want to do with your life. My kids can use it to do whatever, so long as they can make a rational case for how they intend on spending it. They'll also have to endure lots of dad talks and dad advice to make use of this resource. If I've done my job as a parent well, I won't have to worry about policing the "proper" use of this money.

overcast 9y ago
"If I've done my job as a parent well, I won't have to worry about policing the "proper" use of this money." Except they still have to come up with a rational case, and endure lots of dad talks, and dad advice before they can use it.

nyxtom 9y ago

This seems like a problem that could be solved by simply having business development classes in high school. Much like all other skills, there is a need to understand what it takes to run a business; manage budgets, invoice and some rudimentary things. You don't have to create some crazy big start-up, but these are skills that seem necessarily to understand before college. My sister started a therapy business after she was in college and there are basic skills that could of been taught in high school that would of better prepared things. I didn't come across business plan proposals and contingency plans until college but these are pretty straightforward things that could of been taught far earlier IMHO. Once you have that in place, if not in the education system, then through parenting and after-school programs, then by the time college comes around the "decision to start a business" won't come with the unnecessary risk of not knowing how to run one.

bspn 9y ago

I find the title a little manufactured to be honest. He openly admits that if his kids decide they want to go to college then the fund will cover 4 years tuition, but if they decide to do something else then he'll fund that pursuit too. I think his open-mindedness is great as college isn't for everyone, but neither is entrepreneurialism. At the end of the day though, he's not really replacing anything but rather he's doing exactly what he was previously just with a different label.

jchin 9y ago

I agree with the sentiment that college is not the only choice after high school and may not be the best place to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit. However, I was surprised that after all the words used to describe how school was lacking in this particular direction, taking the kids out of school was not considered. As some of the other commenters are suggesting, it may be too much of a jump to offer such a choice to the child at 18 if the child was not preparing for such an opportunity. Homeschooling has its own critics and supporters and we don't need to get into that here. But my question is this: If he's going to trust his child to make a choice at 18, why not even earlier? How about 14? Or, in other words, why not have their education focus on learning how to make their own decisions as early as possible? And if school doesn't provide this for his children, should they be there? Granted, the author doesn't outline what he plans on doing between now and the end of high school for his kids so maybe he is, in fact, preparing them for this decision. I just think that the decision would be too drastic to spring on an 18 year old who has had no preparation for it.

Consultant32452 9y ago
You may be interested in a concept called "unschooling." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling
- jchin 9y ago
  Yes. Also, the discussions on John Taylor Gatto's work https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381608

Havoc 9y ago

Matching the return on a quality education is going to be tough.

finnjohnsen2 9y ago

whenever i see "my kid's college fund", im reminded how grateful i am to live in a more social country than the US. (Norway here btw)

anotherbrownguy 9y ago
Now, download your government's budget, check the expenses in higher education and compare the taxes that all working Norwegians have to pay to support the education system (whether they go to school or not, have children or not) vs taxes in the US.